After four months in a foreign nation, you will usually find some things quite different and sometimes amusing. Here are a few from Timor-Leste regarding the language:
1. “Besi Asu” literally translates “metal dog.” I know what you might be thinking…Cool! Timor has dog robots!?! Well, think again…this name was given to “magnets.” I know, like, whaaat? It took us a couple months to learn dogs were used to sniff out mines during WWII; the Japanese brought metal detectors and the locals just called them “besi asu.”
2. Many things are followed by the word “been” (sounds like: “bane”), meaning “juice.” However! It also follows words like “matan” (eye) to describe tears, inus (nose) to describe snot, and “teen” (sounds like: “tane” which means “poop”) to describe diarrhea…yes, “poop juice,” and it even rhymes…say it with me, “teen been!”
3. One of our favorites is the word for “chest” which is “hirus matan” (sounds like: heeroos matan); it literally translates “angry eyes” and still more funnily, it really means “angry eyes.”
4. Here is a cute one: fire is “ahi” and baby is “oan,” so a flashlight is an “ahi oan,” or “baby fire.”
Stay tuned for more funny tidbits, leave a comment, and follow our blog to check out other things we are doing here in TL.
Oh, and here is a sweet picture of a flying lizard we found in our backyard…he was about 8 inches long and his wings were about 4 inches wide.
love4timor 